astro
May 30, 2011, 2:55am
1
The Secret Knowledge.
.
“I am a new-minted Conservative.” So declares David Mamet, great American author and playwright, on page 152 of his new book, The Secret Knowledge. By that point, his political conversion isn’t a surprise. Earlier statements, such as “Our culture is being destroyed by the Left,” and “The Left longs for the one-party state or dictatorship,” had given it away. I imagine Jonah Goldberg had hardly cracked the second chapter before dropping a National Review cruise invitation in the mail.
The book The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture
“My interest in politics began when I noticed that I acted differently than I spoke, that I had seen ‘the government’ commit sixty years of fairly unrelieved and catastrophic error nationally and internationally, that I not only hated every wasted hard-earned cent I spent in taxes, but the trauma and misery they produced…”
For the past thirty years, David Mamet has been a controversial and defining force in theater and film, championing the most cherished liberal values along the way. In some of the great movies and plays of our time, his characters have explored the ethics of the business world, embodied the struggles of the oppressed, and faced the flaws of the capitalist system.
But in recent years Mamet has had a change of heart. He realized that the so- called mainstream media outlets he relied on were irredeemably biased, peddling a hypocritical and deeply flawed worldview. In 2008 he wrote a hugely controversial op-ed for The Village Voice, “Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain- Dead Liberal,’” in which he methodically eviscerated liberal beliefs. Now he goes much deeper, employing his trademark intellectual force and vigor to take on all the key political and cultural issues of our times, from religion to political correctness to global warming. A sample:
The problems facing us, faced by all mankind engaged in Democracy, may seem complex, or indeed insolvable, and we, in despair, may revert to a state of wish fulfillment-a state of “belief” in the power of the various experts presenting themselves as a cure for our indecision. But this is a sort of Stockholm Syndrome. Here, the captives, unable to bear the anxiety occasioned by their powerlessness, suppress it by identifying with their captors.
This is the essence of Leftist thought. It is a devolution from reason to “belief,” in an effort to stave off a feeling of powerlessness. And if government is Good, it is a logical elaboration that more government power is Better. But the opposite is apparent both to anyone who has ever had to deal with Government and, I think, to any dispassionate observer.
It is in sympathy with the first and in the hope of enlarging the second group that I have written this book.
Mamet pulls no punches in his art or in his politics. And as a former liberal who woke up, he will win over an entirely new audience of others who have grown irate over America’s current direction
Actually it’s just what I expected as I’ve read a few interviews with him in the last year or so. His journey from the left to the right of the political spectrum is fascinating to follow. He has a fierce intellect and his thoughts on the herd instinct in liberals make compelling reading. I’ve always thought, as individualistic as he is, that he’d be more at home on the right. I welcome him with open arms.
Mamet’s newfound conservatism is only surprising if you haven’t been paying any attention to anything he’s been doing for the last few years. I haven’t read his book, but his attacking global warming doesn’t give me any hope of reading something interesting, new, or substantial.
Yeah, I read the thread title and thought, surprising? Did he get a brain back and turn liberal? No? Oh well.
*He what?
What the fuck?
Fuck!
Fuck him, the fuck.*
And scene. Mamet announced he was a conservative a few years back. He doesn’t seem to have anything interesting to say about politics.
astro
May 30, 2011, 4:02am
6
So … it *is *what everyone expected. Well then, my work here is done.
Back to the cloud!
And a far-left leaning friend of mine comments, “Sad, but true.” Obviously I’m not on board with the “sad” part…
New York Times :
Years ago, you described “American Buffalo” as being about “how we excuse all sorts of great and small betrayals and ethical compromises called business.” In this book, you defend enormous payouts to C.E.O.’s working for failing corporations. You seem to have changed radically.
**Don’t you have to denounce your early, anticapitalistic work then? **
Interesting change for David Mamet. Maybe I’ll reread Speed the Plow .
In short:
I dont have a penny=death to the oppressors
Was your point that Conservativeness is a solid cake of self-serving crap with a few bad arguments sprinkled on it for taste?
Is it absurd for a company to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to a C.E.O. if the company is failing? The answer is that it may or may not be absurd, but it’s none of our goddamned business. Because as Milton Friedman said, the question is not what are the decisions but who makes the decisions. Because when the government starts deciding what’s absurd, you’re on the road to serfdom.
**Don’t you have to denounce your early, anticapitalistic work then? **
First paragraph: facepalm. Second paragraph: great desire to kick him in the shins.
I’m guessing Mamet is neither Christian nor Jewish.
Rich jackass discovers which side his bread is buttered on. This is news?
Read it yesterday. Meh. I do like a lot of his stuff, though. I couldn’t care less about his ideology, or how his ideas have “evolved”.
I’m with John on this one. Artists are rarely good political thinkers. I mean, whenever an artist, fiction writer, actor or musician gives support for his or her political opinions on a talk show, it’s rarely something that would impress your average Doper as a strong political argument, it’s more typically the sort of thing that gets shredded pretty quickly in a Great Debates thread. And that holds true no matter how brilliant the artist. Would you expect your accountant to have a deep understanding of jazz because he or she can parse a spreadsheet like nobody’s business?
Or to put it more appropriately, “I’m Evil Captor, and you have to respect my ideas on capitalism, because I’ve written some pretty damn good bondage erotica!”
jjimm
May 30, 2011, 7:42pm
13
You see this watch? You see this watch? That watch cost more than your car. I made $970,000 last year. How much you make? You see, pal, that’s who I am. And you’re nothing. Nice guy? I don’t give a shit. Good father? Fuck you - go home and play with your kids! You wanna work here? Close! You think this is abuse? You think this is abuse, you cocksucker? You can’t take this - how can you take the abuse you get on a sit? You don’t like it - leave. I can go out there tonight with the materials you got, make myself fifteen thousand dollars! Tonight! In two hours! Can you? Can you? Go and do likewise!
Evil_Captor:
Or to put it more appropriately, “I’m Evil Captor, and you have to respect my ideas on capitalism, because I’ve written some pretty damn good bondage erotica!”
Well I’m sure someone mastering the intricacies of bondage would have a very informed view on capitalism.
jjimm:
You see this watch? You see this watch? That watch cost more than your car. I made $970,000 last year. How much you make? You see, pal, that’s who I am. And you’re nothing. Nice guy? I don’t give a shit. Good father? Fuck you - go home and play with your kids! You wanna work here? Close! You think this is abuse? You think this is abuse, you cocksucker? You can’t take this - how can you take the abuse you get on a sit? You don’t like it - leave. I can go out there tonight with the materials you got, make myself fifteen thousand dollars! Tonight! In two hours! Can you? Can you? Go and do likewise!
Good point. I had thought Mamet was mocking that viewpoint. Clearly, not the case.
yeah, it SEEMS like simple common sense, but try and convince our local conservatives of that!
I have. Here’s the question: Is it absurd for a company to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to a C.E.O. if the company is failing? The answer is that it may or may not be absurd, but it’s none of our goddamned business. Because as Milton Friedman said, the question is not what are the decisions but who makes the decisions. Because when the government starts deciding what’s absurd, you’re on the road to serfdom.
Bit of an excluded middle there. I can say that a CEO’s salary is absurd without advocating that the government make the decision instead.
So was David Mamet an economic ignoramus then or is he an economic ignoramus now?
I say why does it have to be one or the other? Why not assume his current economic beliefs are as uninformed as his past economic beliefs were?
Little_Nemo:
So was David Mamet an economic ignoramus then or is he an economic ignoramus now?
I say why does it have to be one or the other? Why not assume his current economic beliefs are as uninformed as his past economic beliefs were?
Or why not take his economic beliefs at face value and evaluate them on the basis of logic and reason as you would anyone else’s?
Never saw that speech quite as “mocking” but rather as “using” that POV - the point is for the audience to have to think, along with the characters of the salesmen, (a)whether this guy’s being serious, and if so (b) then do you really want to do what it takes to be a “closer”.Robot Arm in that exclusion of the middle irks me. But like Evil Captor and John Mace I just would not look to either the old or the new Mamet for authority on politicoeconomic ideology. Just for very good stage/screenwriting.
Evil_Captor:
Or to put it more appropriately, “I’m Evil Captor, and you have to respect my ideas on capitalism, because I’ve written some pretty damn good bondage erotica!”
Conservative CEOs don’t read bondage erotica, they have the City’s finest Dominatrices on retainer to tell them what bad boys they’ve been.